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Welcome to Extreme Cat Lady!

I'm here with my crack team to review cat-related services and products to make sure you get the best for your kitty companions! If you have something you'd like reviewed, please submit it to me via email and I'll definitely take it into consideration!

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Our crack review team is ready to give you their honest opinion on feline products of all kinds. Here they are:

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Copyright and Disclaimer

This blog is entirely the work of E. Marie Robertson under the moniker "Extreme Cat Lady." All text and images are copyrighted by me, and the views and opinions on any product expressed herein are an honest accounting of my own experience with said product. I am not responsible for any claims made by a manufacturer or defects in products blog readers may buy.

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Author: ExtremeCatLady

Want to get kitty a gift but tired of the same old stuff you find in the chain and big box stores? Order a KittyCravings Box from Extreme Cat Lady! I’ll hand-select 4 to 6 team-tested items for your KittyCravings box from small independent pet stores and suppliers that you WON’T find anywhere else. And all this awesome goodness is yours for just $45 plus shipping!

KittyCravings Boxes are based on themes, so you can tailor your kitty’s experience. Available themes are:

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My cats love treats; with the exception of Posey, who doesn’t eat anything that isn’t official cat food from a bag or a can with a cat on it, the Team can be considered certifiable treat-a-holics. The only treats they kitties have ever refused to eat were the Lean Weight Control and Tartar Control treats our vet gives us when we visit, and that stopped when the “littles” — the three youngest members of the team — arrived. They decided they liked those treats just fine, and that made the older cats reconsider their position. Peer pressure among felines appears to be very strong.

I don’t treat that often, but I do like to have some on-hand for play sessions or to reward very good behavior. There are a zillion different types of cat treats out there, and most of them are marketing themselves as “healthy.” The way the team goes nuts for them, I can’t imagine that they are terribly healthy … think of yourself eating a nice plate of steamed cabbage versus a bowl of ice cream.

So what constitutes a “healthy treat”?

The nice people over at VetInfo.com recommend that you look for the following in your chosen treats:

Vitamins and minerals

Fruits and vegetables

Protein sources that are easy to digest, like chicken, salmon, or trout.

High-quality grains

Flaxseed

Potato flour

Ingredients to avoid:

Preservatives BHA, propyl gallate and nitrates

Non-food ingredients, chemical additives

High sodium and sugar content

Artificial flavors or by-products

So, let’s take a look at one of the Team’s favorites, Temptations. These treats are made in Canada and distributed under the Whiskas brand by MARS Petcare in the US (yes, the same company that makes the candy bars). They brag about containing only 2 calories per treat, and the team does love them … Tiny Love in particular will pretty much take my hand off if I don’t give them to her fast enough (hence her Pterodactyl nickname):

As daunting as that list sounds, it’s not entirely dissimilar from the ingredients list on the healthy treats that our vet provides, although there are a LOT of extra things, like catnip powder and dried cheddar cheese, in the Temptations. For the most part, though, it looks to a layperson like a difference primarily in quality of ingredient. Instead of chicken or dried meat “by-product,” our Nutrisentials Treats (by Butler Schein Animal Health) lists recognizable food items like skinless chicken, chicken meal, and chicken liver. I don’t see reference to any kind of “acetate” on the vet-provided treats; those, as it turns out, are synthetic vitamins (people consume them too), and it may just be that the Temptations label is more detailed: the Nutrisentials Tartar Control treats simply say “Vitamin A Supplement” which could easily be the very same thing. Both types of treats meet the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles (if you ever want to start a pet food or treat business, you’ll get a lot out of the AAFCO web site … otherwise, not so much).

The team evaluates some treats. Work is so hard.

As for crude protein, crude fat and crude fiber, the Temptations have lots more than Nutrisentials … think “ice cream versus cabbage” again. The Temptations brag about 2 calories per treat, but don’t say how many treats you should ideally give your feline friends; Nutrisentials doesn’t specify calories per treat, but recommends giving your pet up to 12 treats per day.

Going by the Pterodactyl’s behavior as I wrote this, the Temptations are the immediately preferred treat, but the Nutrisentials are delicious and definitely worth many paws’ up. Temptations are basically available everywhere, from convenience stores to pet food chains. The Nutrisentials have labeling that reads “available only at your veterinarian,” but I’ve seen them all over the Internet and the prices are pretty low. Oddly, the Nutrisentials Lean Treats ARE preserved with BHA, with VetInfo recommends avoiding. Their tartar control cat treats, which apparently have been discontinued, did not have BHA but also had a much longer ingredients list that included a variety of vitamins and minerals not found on the Lean Treats ingredients list. Bizarre.

The take-away from this is, neither type is harmful to your cat, and might be beneficial if you have a finicky eater or are trying to reward good behavior or create a positive association for your cat (like going into his or her carrier). If you are trying a new type of treat for the first time, give just a few and keep an eye on your kitty to make sure there are no negative reactions before taking a more liberal treating approach.

Do you treat? If you do, what is your cat’s favorite food treat? Let me hear from you!

xo,

ExtremeCatLady

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All of us have had a feline friend who for whatever reason preferred the corner of the sofa to his fancy expensive scratching post. My general approach has been behavior modification; making the universal “NO” sound (that “ANHK!” noise–you know, you make it too), followed by saying “No!” and then gently removing the offender’s claws from the sofa and moving him or her to the nearest scratching post. It works if you’re there to go through the process, but if you aren’t on furniture duty, relapses are almost guaranteed.
Even though my sofa corners are past the point of saving, I wanted to see if the common products out there could help in the event I ever got a new sofa. So for the first test in the series, I grabbed a roll of Scratch Prevention Tape by Whisker City at my local Petsmart for $9.59.
The tape I purchased comes on a dispenser just like packing tape, with a flat serrated edge for easy tearing. I’ve also seen it in pre-sized strips, but the dispenser just makes more sense to me. You get 38.2 feet of medical grade adhesive, which the manufacturer promises “won’t harm fabrics.”

The tape is easy to apply. Just pull out the length you want and tear it off the dispenser, then press the exposed side to your furniture. It sticks well but definitely does not feel like it’s going to be damaging or permanent, and you can remove and reposition it easily.

The slightly trickier part is removing the paper backing on the exposed side of the tape. It takes a little patience and fingernails definitely help, but with care the backing can be separated from the tape and then pulled away. One note of caution: if you apply the tape wrapped around the corner, the paper backing can tear a bit when you remove it. Pull slowly!

My cats were very interested in the tape, and at least three of them investigated it thoroughly, including nibbling at it. They seemed perfectly content to touch it, but the interest in scratching seemed to be completely derailed. I’ve had it on the most-scratched corners of my furniture for five days now, and there is still no scratching happening on these areas. Frankly, I’m amazed. I thought it would not deter my little darlings for more than a second, but it really seems to work with this crew. The little darlings are using their floor scratchers and posts

I’ll continue to monitor and update this post to let you know how often it needs to be reapplied. The package recommends weekly, but I’m hoping to stretch it out at least a little longer, even in my dusty, cat-hair-filled house.

So here’s your Speed Summary:product: Scratch Prevention Tape by Whisker Citycost: depends on useage; 32 feet for about $10ease of use: Easyworthiness: YESsuccessful: YESrating: Six paws up. It works with my cats, but if you need a lot and have to reapply it frequently, it could become pricey.

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Welcome to the inaugural post on Extreme Cat Lady, which I hope will become your weekly go-to for reviews and commentary on cat products for every budget–a house party for your cat!

I want to make it clear that at Extreme Cat Lady, we’re all about the cat’s point of view. If a toy that’s billed as “driving them crazy!” barely makes the Team get off the couch, you’ll get the unvarnished truth here. Same deal if a $2 toy from the big box store turns out to be the Best Toy Ever (for at least 20 minutes, the Team has a short attention span).

We want to give you our very best estimate of what your cats will love, and highlight any concerns, questions, or potential problems so they can play, eat, climb and snooze in complete safety. Crazy Cat Lady does not manufacture or sell products, and we don’t review items in return for compensation outside of samples to run by the team. So you and your kitty can count on an unbiased and honest examination of everything we write about.

That also means we really can’t help you if your cat doesn’t like a toy the Team recommended, or if you’re having problems ordering an item we recommended here. For the most part, we will always include active and reputable sources for the products we examine, but we can’t be held responsible for the problems of individual suppliers or the performance of the Internets.

That’s our introduction. I hope you enjoy being here. Please share and like and do all that groovy social media stuff so Extreme Cat Lady can grow and grow!